Related papers: Theoretical limits for sensing through phase separ…
Cells control the size and organization of biomolecular condensates formed by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), but multiple mechanisms likely contribute to this control and remain to be fully elucidated. Here we propose a…
Protein aggregation is of particular interest due to its connection with many diseases and disorders. Many factors can alter the dynamics and result of this process, one of them being the diffusivity of the monomers and aggregates in the…
Microphase separation of membrane components is thought to play an important role in many physiological processes, from cell signaling to endocytosis and cellular trafficking. Here, we study how variations in the membrane composition can be…
We present a generic mechanism by which reproducing microorganisms, with a diffusivity that depends on the local population density, can form stable patterns. It is known that a decrease of swimming speed with density can promote separation…
Biomolecular condensates are complex droplets comprising diverse molecules that interact using various mechanisms. Condensation is often driven by short-ranged attraction, but net charges can also mediate long-ranged repulsion. Using…
We show that spontaneous density segregation in dense systems of aligning circle swimmers is a condensation phenomenon at odds with the phase separation scenarios usually observed in two-dimensional active matter. The condensates, which…
Phase separation plays an role in determining the self-assembly of biological and soft-matter systems. In biological systems, liquid-liquid phase separation inside a cell leads to the formation of various macromolecular aggregates. The…
Fractionation is necessary for self-assembly in multicomponent mixtures. Here, reversible fractionation and crystallization are realized and studied in a two-dimensional binary colloids which is supersaturated by enhancing the attraction…
Phase separation dynamics with an initially non-uniform concentration are studied. Critical and off-critical behavior is observed simultaneously. A mechanism for an expanding phase separated region is demonstrated and the time dependence of…
Phase separation drives the formation of biomolecular condensates in cells, which comprise many components and sometimes possess multiple phases. The equilibrium physics of phase separation is well understood, but many components in…
We report the splitting of an oscillating DNA circuit into $\sim 700$ droplets with picoliter volumes. Upon incubation at constant temperature, the droplets display sustained oscillations that can be observed for more than a day.…
We propose a continuum theory of the liquid-liquid phase separation in an elastic network where phase-separated microscopic droplets rich in one fluid component can form as an interplay of fluids mixing, droplet nucleation, network…
Biological mixtures such as the cytosol may consist of thousands of distinct components. There is now a substantial body of evidence showing that, under physiological conditions, intracellular mixtures can phase separate into spatially…
It has been proposed that during the early steps in the origin of life, small droplets could have formed via the segregation of molecules from complex mixtures by phase separation. These droplets could have provided chemical reaction…
The fundamental biological processes of development of tissues and organs in multicellular organisms is governed by various signaling molecules, which are called morphogens. It is known that spatial and temporal variations in concentration…
Biological cells use droplets to separate components and spatially control their interior. Experiments demonstrate that the complex, crowded cellular environment affects the droplet arrangement and their sizes. To understand this behavior,…
To maintain homeostasis, living cells process information with networks of interacting molecules. Traditional models for cellular information processing have focused on networks of chemical reactions between molecules. Here, we describe how…
Droplets are essential for spatially controlling biomolecules in cells. To work properly, cells need to control the emergence and morphology of droplets. On the one hand, driven chemical reactions can affect droplets profoundly. For…
The separation of substances into different phases is ubiquitous in nature and important scientifically and technologically. This phenomenon may become drastically different if the species involved, whether molecules or supramolecular…
A new simple method for the first order phase transition kinetics is suggested. The metastable phase consumption can be imagined in frames of the modisperse approximation for the distribution of the droplets sizes. In all situations of the…